I fastened the buttons on my shirt before I grabbed my suit jacket. It was 5 AM and, for once, both Clara and Madeline were sleeping. I was due back at work, the household needed to settle into a routine, and I needed to get out of this penthouse. It smelled of her musk and screamed of her presence, and my head was swimming with filthy thoughts of all the places I wanted to put my tongue.

I didn’t bother waking them up, but I did scribble a note and leave it for her on the door. I thought of a few items that needed to get done, like finding Clara a doctor and possibly looking into some genetic testing. For all I knew, she could be going blind and I’d have no idea. None of those types of medical records came with the frivolous basket she was dumped in before someone ran off without her, and thinking about it again made me clench my fists as I stood at the doors of the elevator.

“Mornin’, Mr. Blake,” Franz smiled when the doors parted.

“Franz,” I nodded.

“How’s fatherhood comin’ along?” he asked before he hit the button for the main floor of the building.

“It was rough at first,” I said with a sly grin on my face.

“They grow on ya, that’s for sure,” he chuckled. “How’s the nanny workin’ out?”

“Oh, she’s wonderful; been a real life saver.”

“Uh huh.”

I slowly turned my head to face him while the elevator slowed to a stop.

“What does ‘uh huh’ mean?” I asked.

“Nothin’.”

“That didn’t sound like ‘nothin’’.”

“Y’jus’ look happy, Mr. Blake; and we all deserve a bit of happiness.”

He was right… yet again. I was happy. For the first time since I left home, I felt like I had a place: a purpose. My family and I, we didn’t get along well. I don’t call, and they don’t come knocking. See, I didn’t go and get a college degree like my lawyer father, and I didn’t settle down with any of the “nice and quiet” women my mother thought I should choose. The arranged random dinner dates on nights I wanted to go out with my friends, left many women sitting silently at a table with my parents while I snuck out the back to go joy cruising with my buddies. I got my kicks underneath the bleachers like every other boy and kept on going: straight C student with no prospects of going anywhere.

It’s actually the reason why I started my company.

I wanted to do the laziest thing possible. I didn’t want to study for years like my dad or take on some woman, like my mom, that just wanted me to shell out all my money for a designer house. I had no issues calling her exactly what she was – a gold digger – and I had no issues telling my father he had no backbone. I watched my mom bleed him dry over the years while he worked himself to death, and he took his anger out on me by saying I’d amount to nothing if I didn’t go to college the same way he did.

Now here I stand with $6 billion in assets that says otherwise.

The easiest way to describe my business is a one-stop shop for investment. People come here when they are desperate for loans, want to grow their retirement accounts, or simply try the waters for their first time in investing. In the beginning, I wanted to make as much money as I could while doing a miniscule amount of work. Some teacher at my high school went on a tirade one day about retiring early, and I thought it was odd.

I mean, the man was only forty years old.

So, I got curious one day. Ditched another date my parents had set up for me in order to track him down at his favorite diner and ask him how he was going do it. I wanted to know how he was a teacher and going to retire at forty.

So he told me about investing.

He told me about compound interest and showed me how far twenty dollars could go in something called the stock market. Every day after school I showed up in his classroom with more questions and hypothetical scenarios in order to help me navigate what the hell I was supposed to be doing. He taught me the basic mathematics and talked to me about the S&P 500 Index, and he continued to drill into my head that compound interest was “where it was at.”

So, I got a job at the local grocery store my last year of high school and put everything I made into the stock market.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just opening up random accounts with compound interest rates that were through the roof and I was just doing my thing. I lost a lot of money and I made a lot of money, and I kept a journal of notes and lessons I learned as I watched my money skyrocket and swirl down the drain. I looked at the market every chance I got: I bargained with students to get their computer time and turned on the news and watched the scroll at the bottom of the screen. Hell, I would even sit with that damn teacher who was teaching me stuff and he would talk me through all the damn numbers in the first place!

But the money I was getting from the grocery store wasn’t enough, and soon I found ways to make more. I started doing yard work and helping out at my dad’s firm. He kept pressing law school and I kept shrugging him off, and eventually I had three different side businesses going.

And all of my cash flow went into the stock market.

I made my first million by the time I was 22, and my parents finally thought I should settle down. “You’ve made your money, now spoil a nice girl with it” my mom would say.

Of course she would. She probably wished I’d spoil her with it.

“Now you can pay for law school, son!” my dad would shout. “You know how many kids will pay for their school the rest of their life!?”

But I wanted more. I didn’t want a desk life like my dad or a gold-digger wife like my mom had become. I wanted all the money I could get and I wanted all the women I could muster. I wanted to spoil them rotten, fill them to the brim, and then send them packing so they couldn’t take anything else from me.

They had my dinners and they had my seed, what more could they have wanted?

“Have a good day, Mr. Blake,” Franz smirked at me.

I buttoned my coat and made my way to my car, and a random driver I didn’t recognize got out and opened the door for me. I wasn’t due in the office until 8 AM, but I figured if I could get an early start then I could get home early and be with Clara.

I had a feeling I’d miss her today, and I wanted to see if I could get back early.

Anyway, I took half of my first million and started my main holding company, D. B. Enterprise. I made a business around trading stocks, and eventually brought on partners to invest money into me trading stocks. I bought companies that were going under and revamped them before taking 40% of what they owned, and I flipped companies the way people flip houses. I grew my portfolio and before I turned 30, I had over 40 companies I had fixed and over just shy of $1 billion in revenue.

My 30th birthday present to myself became the place I currently spend most of my time. Blake & Associates Financial Center was a venture I took on with two other trusted investors in my holding company. Through B & A, I continued to buy out run-down companies, flip them, and then take 40% of everything they would ever make from there on out. I also started opening some offices to hire financial experts. Through Blake & Associates, I now offered fiduciary services as well as a wealth of low, medium, and high-risk accounts dealing in everything from IRAs to basic savings accounts, and I implemented loans specializing in those who needed business loans, but were turned down by traditional banks.

I didn’t charge them any interest, but what I did charge them was 30% of their entire business from inception to divorce, and if they went under, I usurped all the rights to the business in case I wanted to flip it.

And yes, they had the option to purchase it from me at a much higher price once I did flip it.

Now, at 37 years old, I was worth $6 billion between my financial center and my holdings company/flipping enterprise…

… and my parents still told me I should’ve followed their plan.

Mom called to ask for money every once in a while, and for a time I gave it to her: money for a new dress here; extra money for a vacation there. I paid for my father’s open-heart surgery after his first heart attack, and I even paid for mom to stay in the nicest hotel in the area while dad recuperated in the hospital.

I eventually issued her a credit card tied to my account in case there were medical things that came up with dad while he recuperated at home. At first, he needed a new oxygen tank or new tubing for his breathing apparatus. New sheets for the hospital bed he was using until he was cleared to walk upright, and the copayments for his medications he needed. But then, payments that didn’t make any sense started showing up: shoe stores; gas stations outside of the state; expensive hotel rooms; and very pricey tabs at incredibly fancy restaurants.

I called dad to figure out what was happening. I thought that maybe something had occurred. He had gotten a fatal diagnosis and they were having one last hurrah.

I would’ve gone home if my dad had been dying.

But what I found was the neighbor taking care of him while my mother was off treating herself. Said she deserved it after the stress dad’s heart attack had on her.

I cut her credit card, paid for a full-time in-home nurse, and I haven’t heard from her since.

Dad calls every now and then to update me on his firm. He sounds weak, and every day I wonder if I’m going to get a call that tells me he’s finally up and croaked.

But every time we talk, he asks me two things: if I have a nice girl in my life and if I will ever consider going to school to get an education.

The fuck do I need an education?

I’ve got $6 billion in assets!

As a straight-C student!

“We’re here, sir,” the driver said.

It yanked me from my thoughts. My eyes darted up towards the looming building as the sun finally decided to peek above the horizon of the city, and I opened the door before I stepped my shining shoe onto the pavement. The coffee shop in the building wouldn’t be open until six, so I shut the door behind me and went on into my office. I figured when my secretary came in I could send her to get both her and I something.

But when I got up to my office, the coffee soon left my mind.

The elevator doors parted onto the top floor of the building, and I began the dark descent to an office I never thought I’d want as I thought back to Clara. She had those big blue eyes that were unmistakably Gracie’s, and I started wondering what happened to her.

Gracie wasn’t one just… to run away–

– Unless it was from me, of course.

She was headstrong: loud; opinionated; never backed down from a fight; and always made sure she had the last word. She was an infuriating ball of residual energy that zapped the life out of you before breathing it all back in through a hole in her lips.

Was she all right?

Did she need anything?

I didn’t love her anymore: of course not. She left me high and dry – the only woman I’d ever hooked myself onto after my mother shoved all those stupid, brainless women onto me as a teenager – and pregnant with my daughter! I missed out on formidable weeks of her life because she ran scared!

But she was still the mother of my child, and for all I knew she was bleeding out in a ditch somewhere after getting herself into some trouble.

If there was anything that girl knew how to do, it was get herself into trouble.

So, as the clock slowly peeled upwards and struck 6 AM, I called the only private investigator in all of New York City that could possibly be up at this hour.

And he just happened to be the best.